Does your kid believe in Elf on the Shelf? Do they believe in Santa? How old are they?
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Anonymous
| Curious when kids stop believing in the Elf (if they did at one point) in comparison to when they stop believing in Santa (again, if they ever did). |
Anonymous
| Elf on the Shelf is just wrong. Anyone who is teaching their child that this is a REAL thing has serious, serious problems. |
Anonymous
| We do all the Christmas trappings except for Elf on the Shelf. I never wanted to introduce it because I don’t like the idea of it. And it’s not like I needed one more thing to do during the holidays, to hide the Elf and stage some sort of scene every night. No thanks. The kids didn’t miss out on anything. My youngest is 9 and I don’t think he’s a believer anymore but I haven’t outright asked him and he hasn’t brought it up. My older two no longer believe. |
Anonymous
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We’ve never done Elf on the shelf. Just seems like one more thing to add to the to do list for moms. No thanks!
My 9yo figured out about Santa over the past year. It probably happened around last Christmas but she didn’t ask me to confirm until this summer. |
Anonymous
Hello Grinch. It is real, you'll see. It will show up December 1st and move every night while we're asleep and travel back to the North Pole and report back to Santa about my child' behavior. The effect on my Child's not fully formed Child brain is magical. To my Child it is real. Cultivating imagination in Children is very healthy. Everyday and everything is obviously not a fairytale in our home, but there is nothing wrong with having some fun and festive traditions for young children. Trust me, when they find out these things are not real (ages 9-10 most likely), some of the magic is gone. For now it's real, nothing wrong with cultivating and developing a child's imagination. They have the rest of their lives to live without such magic and the realities of life; most folks don't teach young children such realities right away. |
Anonymous
| My oldest just turned 8 and is still a believer. She might be more on the fence about the elf but she’s holding on strong to Santa still. I hope it lasts. |
Anonymous
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age 10 and very much so. at this age i'm fine with him learning the truth but he beleives.
just begged to know where the f&() elf is we teach him that we are all santa and we find a family to be santa for every year. I reminded him off this a few days ago and he said but the real santa brings our gifts. argh |
Anonymous
| Never did it. I always told my son it was a fake gimmick. 9 year old just this year stopped believing in Santa. |
Anonymous
| We never did the Elf; just never started it and now I'm so relieved because I know I could not keep up with it. I have almost 9 year old twins; I'm a little surprised they still believe in Santa. I think the more mature/street-smart one of them is getting skeptical; the other one is still all-in and is giving me historical/scientific explanations for how the whole Santa situation works. |
Anonymous
| I work in an elementary school. Any child who claims to still believe by 4th grade is willfully ignorant or faking because by 4th grade the reality is openly discussed by so many kids. |
Anonymous
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We have never done Elf on the Shelf. It seemed like wayy too much pressure on parents. My kids 6&9 do believe in Santa, but Santa only brings them stockings.
The past few years we have done big trips at Christmas and so all we could pack were stockings. Last year we were in Copenhagen and got to experience and learn all about Danish Christmas traditions. We learned about the Danish "Nisse", a elf/gnome folklore tradition. There is a little "Nisse" door that emerges December 1st and you have to be nice and leave little treats (mostly just pudding on Christmas eve) otherwise it might play a trick on you....in return, it may leave a little gift. The family we spent Christmas with surprised the kids with wrapped legos on Christmas eve! We are incorporating this tradition and have a little door we will put out and will leave out pudding Christmas eve and then later check to see if it was eaten and if anything was left....I got 2 small things of legos. I got two little advent books about it that we will read too. |
Anonymous
Woops- I meant to add that I like it better than Elf on the Shelf because it's based on a whole folklore tradition, not just a new marketing ploy. You also don't have to do much with it at all except one little thing on Christmas eve, so it's cute, "magical" and low pressure. win! |
Anonymous
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I had planned to do Santa is real but my kid straight up asked me when she was 2 and I couldn't bring myself to lie to her so that was the end of that.
We do discuss how to handle it with her friends at school and how many kids believe and it's kinder to let them discover the truth on their own. She's in 2nd grade now and there are kids in her class that still believe. |
Anonymous
| For all the parents who didn't do elf on the shelf - you are so lucky |
Anonymous
| We did it one year. Way too much work. Don't do it. |